As illustrator in the Department of Prehistory and Europe at the British Museum, I am always looking for the best way to help our curators interpret an object. My role is to produce artwork that shows the form, construction and nature of objects and any decoration on them so that they can be clearly understood. This will usually result in illustration for academic publications and exhibitions as a result of research work on the Museum collection, or excavations.

Traditionally I have produced pen and ink technical drawings but new opportunities are available through various computer-generated methods of recording, analysing and understanding information about objects and excavation. With the Chiseldon Cauldrons material, I am exploring some of the possibilities of these new technologies, and in this case using photogrammetry and laser scanning programs to produce 3D records of the archaeological remains of individual cauldron blocks as they are excavated by Alex and Jamie.

Three-dimensional scan results

We are using a laser scanning system to produce 3D computer models of the individual pieces from each cauldron. This is achieved by plotting a thin red laser line as it is slowly moved across the surface of an object. Having recorded each piece we are hoping to use the photogrammetry programme to virtually re-construct the blocks as excavated.

The early results we achieved proved somewhat variable, especially with the laser scanning, but we are now starting to produce some very good quality scans in terms of both modelling and colour accuracy.

The plan is to produce virtual models of each cauldron as excavated which will enable us to understand much better what they would have originally looked like, and how they were made. It is also hoped that an overall plan of the pit and its contents can be reproduced. We’ll also be able to produce artwork for both printed and online publication, and to generate virtual re-constructions for publication and display. As we create interesting images, we’ll also post some of them here on the blog so you can see what we’re finding.

The Chiseldon cauldrons research project is supported by the Leverhulme Trust